Networks may be divided into multiple domains for reasons of scalability or administrative policy. In general, computation of paths crossing multiple domains is done using some method of topology abstraction in order to improve the scalability of the routing protocol or to maintain some privacy of the topology within individual domains. More recently, another method has been proposed using a separate Path Computation Element (PCE) for each domain and in some cases a PCE at a higher level that has a view of multiple domains and can contact their PCEs. Each PCE computes a path in its own domain and exports the path so that a complete path can be defined across multiple domains, without loss of accuracy. This path is used as the Explicit Route Object (ERO) in connection setup. For the PCE methods, accurate paths can be computed using the help of multiple PCEs where each PCE keeps the topology within its domain confidential. However, such methods at the current time are designed for domains with essentially homogeneous characteristics such as addressing scheme, node identification, and internal protocol. This is because the Explicit Route Object is designed to hold route hops that are part of a consistent addressing or identifier scheme in order to detect if loops have occurred in the computed path. In addition, there is some potential for the returned ERO to be no longer valid at the time the connection is requested, since there is a delay involved during which the resources along the returned ERO have been allocated to other connections, leading to a requirement to crankback or recomputed the path.